The Lumia 928 is the best Windows phone yet, but it isn't Verizon's best phone overall.

If at first you don't succeed… Well, that might be a little misleading. Nokia's Lumia 920 for AT&T has been modestly successful as far as Windows phones are concerned. But Nokia is trying again with the $99.99 Lumia 928 for Verizon Wireless. It's almost the exact same phone as the 920, except it's been fitted with a new, lighter design, and improved low-light camera performance. The Lumia 920 was arguably the best Windows phone on the market, so there's no doubt the Lumia 928 now holds the title. It's a well-priced alternative to Android and Apple, but it's still not the best phone on Verizon.

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Design and Call QualityIf the Lumia 920 is flat-out humongous, then the Lumia 928 is just really big. Whereas the 920 weighs in at a whopping 6.53 ounces, the 928 is somewhat more reasonable at 5.71 ounces. That's still a lot heavier than the 4.6-ounce Samsung Galaxy S 4—which is not only lighter, but has a much bigger screen than the Lumia 928. And it's nearly two full ounces heavier than Apple's 4-ounce iPhone 5, though that phone has a smaller screen. But there's no way around it—the Lumia 928 is a big phone. At 5.24 by 2.71 by 0.44 inches (HWD), you can still hold and operate it with just one hand, but there's a lot of excess bezel around the display at every angle.

Nokia has traded the matte polycarbonate of the Lumia 920 for a high-gloss finish. I miss the matte, which has a much more sumptuous, luxe feel. But I especially miss all of the fun colors, like red, blue, and yellow. The Lumia 928 is only available in black or white.

The rolled edges of the 920 have been replaced with much sharper angles—you can even stand the 928 up vertically if you choose to do so. The headphone jack is at the top left of the phone, while the micro USB jack is next to it in the center. On the right side you'll find Volume, Power, and Camera buttons. I would've preferred the buttons be broken up differently, as I kept pressing the Volume button when I meant to press Power. There's no memory card slot, and the 2,000mAh battery is sealed in. I got 9 hours and 32 minutes of talk time, which is very close to what we saw on the Lumia 920, which has the same battery. Also like the 920, the 928 has features wireless charging, but you need to purchase a separate (wired) charging pad in order to use it.

The Lumia 920's 4.5-inch IPS LCD has been replaced by a 4.5-inch OLED panel. It has the same 1,280-by-768-pixel resolution, and the same 334-pixels-per-inch screen density. The main difference is that OLED looks even richer, though I don't dig the PenTile pixel layout, which can cause text and images to appear fuzzy if you look closely. But the phone is much more readable outside than many of its competitors.

The Lumia 928 supports a ton of frequency bands, so you can connect to global HSPA+ and LTE networks if Verizon has roaming agreements with those carriers. The phone also has 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and faster 5GHz bands, along with Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, and NFC. Reception was decent and 4G LTE data speeds in Manhattan were on par with what we've been seeing lately.

This is a great phone if you like to talk. Incoming calls get very loud and sound clear, with a real richness and warmth. The same goes for calls made with the phone, which were easy to hear even when made from an area with lots of construction noise in the background. The speakerphone is borderline loud enough to hear outside, and calls sounded great over a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset. I had no trouble triggering Microsoft's voice command software, which works fine for making calls, but is no match for Apple's Siri.

Windows Phone 8 and AppsThe Lumia 928 uses the same 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 processor as the 920, not to mention the Lumia 822, the HTC 8X, and the Samsung Ativ Odyssey. In short, there isn't much variation among any of the Windows phones. That's mostly thanks to Microsoft, which runs a much tighter ship with Windows Phone than Google does with its open-source Android. That's good for quality assurance, but bad for innovation. Either way, benchmark scores on this phone were on par with other WP8 devices.

Windows Phone 8 is a quick, minimalist operating system built around a series of live tiles on your home screen. The tiles continuously pull information from social networks, the Internet, messages, and local content stored on your phone, which is both useful and fun. Of particular note is the People Hub, which pulls together your contacts from different sources—like email, Facebook, and Twitter—and presents you with all of your social-networking updates in one place. It's more flexible than Apple's iOS, but less than Google's Android. For a closer look at WP8, you can read our full review.

The biggest difference among Windows phones lies in the included apps, which is where Nokia once had a leg up on the competition. When the Lumia 920 came out, most of Nokia's proprietary apps were exclusive to Nokia Phones. Now Nokia is serving up those apps for all WP8 phones in the Windows Phone store, though they come preloaded on the 928. Nokia is doing this in order to acquire more user-generated data for a better overall experience, though it claims the apps themselves work best on Lumia devices.

About the Author

Alex Colon is the managing editor of PCMag's consumer electronics team. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Writing and Literature from Pace University and got his start editing books before deciding technology would probably be a lot more fun.
Though he does the majority of his reading and writing on various digital displays, Alex still l... See Full Bio

Nokia Lumia 928 (Verizon Wireless)

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